DAEMON SONGS, op.3: for Voice and Piano

Daemon Songs: World Premiere Information

A recital organized and televised by the Vafopoulion Cultural Center and the Municipality of the city of Thessalonki. Theatre of the Vafopoulion Cultural Center, Thessaloniki, Greece, June 7, 1995.

Daemon Songs: Second Performance

Marcia Roberts, mezzo-soprano.

Katerina Stamatelos, piano.

Composers’ Workshop Concert, Clapp Recital Hall, The University of Iowa, School of Music, Iowa City, IA, February 8, 1998.

The recording of this work, appearing on the SXISMA RECORDS album Songs and Prayers of the Abyss is based on this second live-performance.

Daemon Songs: Program Notes

In September 1994, Harald Becker, a German baritone with whom I had performed Schubert's Winterreise a few months before in Thessaloniki (Greece), asked me to write three to four Greek songs for him. I decided to use a cycle of ten meditation-poems I had written between 1976 and 1986. Not having any particular ambition to "become a composer," I soon started to enjoy the process.

The cycle was finally performed June 7, 1995.

For the poetry I had used three languages since, during that time I had been living in Austria, Canada, Greece, and the United States. Expressing myself in these languages (Greek, German, and English) only felt natural.

The term Daemon is not used here with its satanic meaning, but rather in concord with Dostojewski's sense of "nightmare" (songs 4, 7, 8, 9) and Socrates' "inner voice" or the voice of his "Unknown God" (songs 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10).

Daemon Songs: the recording

The recording of Daemon Songs was done during the live performance of the work at its second performance, as stated above.

DAEMON SONGS ON AMAZON

Daemon Songs: The Nightmares Posters

The Nightmares posters series was inspired by my composition Two Nocturns for violoncello and piano as well as by my gouache painting series The Lovers.

Through photographing certain details of the paintings, I realized that I had uncovered something new: hidden fears and nightmares, deeply buried into the subconscious mind. Fears that might get alive during our sleep or during phases of a relationship when anguish reigns.

Finally, and in accordance with the Dostjewskian "nightmare" concept, I found them most suitable to appear on this page as well.